


Either way, she's not for you

by BardicRaven



Series: Songs from the Choir Loft [1]
Category: The Girl from Ipanema
Genre: Cultural norms, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lady and the Tiger, Loyalty, Marriage, Objectification, Siren, even tho' it often is, expectations of women, fidelity, marriage expectations, mermaid, question-fic, rebel words, sexual expectations, the world doesn't have to be like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: The Girl from Ipanema is only for herself.Here are two explorations of why.(and a third, because my husband saw another way)





	1. Chapter 1

# #MeToo

There was a time, once, back when the Girl from Ipanema allowed herself to have a name, to be an individual with a separate identity, a specific person unique from all the rest, that she acknowledged the throngs who admired her as she walked along the beach every day.

The wolf whistles, the cat calls, the sighs and the declarations of love, all were met with a gentle smile or a reproving frown, depending on who - and why.

But that all changed one day when something precious was taken from her that she’d had no desire to give, stolen as she was pressed down onto the sand, the ocean covering her pain, drowning her tears at the loss, and ever since, along with her name, her form, she gave up the pretty smiles and the stern frowns alike, to walk along the beach alone, seeing no-one, hearing nothing, only her and the sun and the sand, and distantly, oh so distantly, the ever-present crash of the ocean’s wave.

It was safer, that way.

O>>>\------------->

# Mermaid

The Girl from Ipanema walks along the sands, ignoring the crowds of people come to see her pass by. She ignores the calls rising and falling from their throats like the ocean waves on her other side.

It’s not that she’s too good for them – although, really, she is – but what she is for sure, is too different for them.

From them.

A difference that’s not safe, for either side, for all that they don’t know that, and wouldn’t admit it even if they did.

Her voice, were she to speak to them, would capture millions. Not arrogance, but simple fact. She and her kind were born that way – to command the seas through their voices, to compel obedience, fear, love.

Her mere presence does enough – she’d not have them enslaved even more by her notice, her voice, her attention or her love.

So she passes each one, and each one, as she passes, goes ‘ah!’. Sighing for what they cannot have. Longing for what will never be.

The Girl from Ipanema keeps walking.

It’s safer, that way.


	2. Fidelis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's another reason she ignores the crowds.

The Girl from Ipanema frowns as she walks along the sands. Once again, the voices that call out to her, nearly, tho’ not quite, drown out the waves to her other side. Every day the same. Crowds calling to her with every step, an annoying buzz she wishes would stop, tho' it never does. She should just go to another beach to walk. She knows this, but refuses to give in to the crowds and their demands. She loves this beach and refuses to be driven from it.

It was here that she met her love. Here that they first kissed. Here that they pledged their love.

She is true to the one who captured her heart.

Not to the crowds.

She wishes they would understand that, but understands that they probably never will.

So she keeps walking, her eyes straight-ahead, looking to her future – and her love.

All else fades away as she walks, tall and tan and young and lovely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ##### So this chapter is thanks to my husband, who told me of the reason that came to him as he heard the song.
> 
> ##### It felt worthy of a chapter, so here it is.

**Author's Note:**

> ##### We sang this song in the summer session of the Ann Arbor Civic Chorus a few days ago, and it struck me just how inappropriate it was/is that there is such an expectation that just because she’s ‘tall and tan and young and lovely’ that somehow, the Girl from Ipanema, who is not even granted the courtesty of a name, a separate identity beyond her looks, owes the ones she passes something.
> 
> ##### So the first part fell out of my head in the time between sleep and wakefullness today, and then, the thought came – what if she were a siren? What if that were the reason she ignores them – out of kindness? So the second part came as well.
> 
> ##### Either way, she’s not for them. Not for the masses that cheer as she passes. She is only for herself.


End file.
